


Island of Memories

by 000Diana000



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Spoilers, kinda sad, luke pondering all alone on that island
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 02:25:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5894458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/000Diana000/pseuds/000Diana000
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Luke’s mind Ben Solo had been a multitude of parts taken from different people and put together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Island of Memories

He likes to think he’s seen both the rise and the fall of a world. He’s lived long enough to hear people cheering the death of Darth Vader and to tremble again under the First Order. 

Sometimes he thinks it’s poetic. Freedom being destroyed over and over again by a Skywalker. He tries to imagine how his deceased mother, Padme Amidala, would think. He never got the chance to meet her though many people spoke so highly of the former queen that it was hard not to feel like you knew her. She had left her mark on the galaxy, only for it to be erased by her husband’s tyranny. Queen at only 14, a believer in people’s rights, he thinks it’s better she never got to see another generation destroy everything she had stood for. 

The moment he saw his own nephew murder a young jedi in front of him his whole body shook with the memory of a moment in time he had no way of remembering. Somehow he saw a young man take out a lightsaber Luke recognized with a heavy heart and slaughter children. By the time he snapped out of it, it was too late. Ben was already gone.  
He’s always wondered how the old Ben Kenobi felt when Anakin turned to the dark side. For years he’s been cursing his inability to remember whether he had heard emotion behind his old master’s words when he first spoke of Anakin Skywalker or not. He had wondered if his old Master had been so set on his Jedi ways as to not let a single tear spill the moment Luke’s father betrayed him. He never thought he’d live to experience it. Maybe he wasn’t half the Jedi that Master Kenobi was, but he remembered crying out in pain when he saw the aftermath of his nephew’s turning to the dark side. The bodies were half buried already by the sand storm in the middle of the desert by the time he finally realized what had happened. 

His world started on a desert planet and it shattered in the desert too. 

With the death of his aunt and uncle still fresh on his memory despite the decades that had passed, Luke saw the new pile of bodies, new blood on his hands taunt him. He left in a hurry. 

He should’ve noticed the signs, he thinks. Maybe he did but was too stubborn to realize what they meant. He should’ve recognized the flashes of anger in his nephew’s eyes when Luke’s answers were vague and unsatisfying after Ben asked about the Sith Lords. He remembers how annoyed Luke had been when Master Yoda refused to answer Luke’s own questions, decades before that. 

Ben reminded Luke of so many people he loved. During their training, the way his nephew was fighting like he either had nothing more to lose or he knew he would win no matter what reminded Luke of Han. The way Ben would carry himself and talk reminded him of Leia. His curiosity reminded Luke of himself. 

In Luke’s mind Ben Solo had been a multitude of parts taken from different people and put together. There had been one person Luke never thought he would see in Ben and that was Darth Vader. Not Anakin Skywalker, child of the Force and at one point a powerful Jedi, but the Sith Lord that created the Death Star and destroyed planets, was manipulated and turned to the dark side. Just like his grandfather before him, Ben proved to be foolish enough and naïve enough. Barely grown out of his teenage years Ben had already taken a life. 

Fate was a funny thing, Luke thinks. Fate brought him there, on an island off any map in the Universe, self-exiled and forced to think about his failures. If he had been paying more attention, if he had listened to his other padawans when they told him something was off about Ben, maybe, maybe neither of them would be where they were now. Maybe the Jedi order wouldn’t have been extinct for the second time in years. Maybe Ben would’ve made his family proud. Maybe Luke could’ve kept people’s hopes up instead of people’s memories of him transforming into myths and legends. 

Maybe Luke wouldn’t have had to cry in agony the second he felt Han Solo die at the hands of Han's only son. Maybe Luke wouldn’t have cowardly ran away from his responsibilities.

Maybe this young girl wouldn’t have had to come here. 

As he heard her footsteps, he waited until she stopped right behind him. He could pretend, he thinks. He could ignore her and everything that he destroyed in the universe. She never saw his face. If not for R2-D2 he doubts she would’ve been as sure that he was indeed the one she was looking for. He closed his eyes and thought of the people he loved.  
He thought of Leia, all alone with her husband, son and brother dead, gone or missing. He thought of Han Solo, once so carefree and young, who had loved his son so much and had been so proud when Luke told him Ben had the Force despite not believing in it when he had first met Luke. He thinks of Chewie most likely all alone, without Han. Lastly he thinks of Ben. Once the toddler who laughed so much when Luke made his toys float around him, the child who told Luke he wanted to be a Jedi when he grew older, the teenager who was so talented with a lightsaber and finally he thinks of the man that hates his past so much he murdered his own father just to escape it. 

The broken man manipulated to follow the dark path in spite of the people who loved him. 

And because history seemed to repeat itself, Luke Skywalker was going to save him. He turned around.

The girl was standing in front of him handing him the lightsaber that passed through the hands of his father and Luke’s own hands back in the days he was young, and brave, and careless and still a Jedi. 

He looked at the young girl. She was looking back at him with such hope in her eyes that it hurt. 

Luke took the lightsaber.


End file.
